War & Conflict Archive

The United States is training a growing force of African troops as part of a wider strategy to fight al-Qaida-affiliated militants in Somalia. Boot camps where contractors hired by the U.S. State Department provide training to Ugandan soldiers made headlines earlier this week. According to recent reports, U.S. contractors will train three quarters of the 18,000 African Union troops deployed to Somalia, and the U.S. government has spent $550 million over the past several years on training and equipment. Politics is what leads to the use of private contractors instead of the military in many African conflicts and crises, such […]

Ethnic rebels from the Kachin Independence Army have battled the Myanmar army for a year in a conflict that has displaced around 50,000 civilians and cast a shadow over government reforms. World News Videos by NewsLook

Over the past week, we have seen the first real case of sectarian violence spilling over from Syria into neighboring Lebanon. In clashes in and around the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, at least five people have been killed in fighting that is, as I write this, winding down following the deployment of the Lebanese army. This may seem like an odd time, then, to pour cold water on the risks of Syria’s sectarian conflict reigniting dormant civil conflicts in Lebanon and also Iraq. To be sure, there is a real danger the violence in Syria will spill over into […]

Abe Selig, an analyst with Stratfor, explains how the upcoming May 20 NATO summit in Chicago and the recent assassination of a Taliban official are complicating the U.S. goal of withdrawal from Afghanistan. World News Videos by NewsLook

On May 2, the United States and Afghanistan signed a new Strategic Partnership Agreement after months of negotiations. In the accord, the United States pledged to support social and economic development, provide security assistance and promote regional cooperation for 10 years beyond the planned 2014 withdrawal date for all U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan. Under the terms of the agreement, the United States will not seek permanent military bases in the country, but can receive access to Afghan facilities. In return, the Afghanistan government committed to strengthen accountability, transparency, the rule of law and human rights for all Afghans, male […]

Residents of two rival neighborhoods in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli cowered in fear on Monday as fresh sectarian clashes erupted linked to the unrest in neighboring Syria. World News Videos by NewsLook

Washington has condemned the double car bombings that occured Thursday in the Syrian capital, the worst attack in Damascus since the uprising began. World News Videos by NewsLook

Announcements made at 2:30 a.m. usually come as a surprise, and the one made Tuesday night by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no exception. Israelis rubbed their eyes, trying to make sure they had heard correctly: Netanyahu upended the country’s political chessboard by making a deal with the largest opposition party. Early elections, which had been expected in September, were canceled. Suddenly, Israel no longer has a rightist government. Most importantly, the deal with Shaul Mofaz, the newly elected head of the centrist Kadima party, has pulled the rug out from under the extreme-right parties. This is one for […]

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has wrapped up her latest trip to Asia, which included stops in China, Bangladesh and India, where she met with government officials to review the strategic partnership between India and the United States. She emphasized that the countries must expand trade and investment, deepen security cooperation, promote a shared vision for the region and, she told the media in Delhi, “meet the challenges and seize the opportunities in South and Central Asia.” But Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Trend Lines there have been no major changes in the U.S.-Indian […]

Between 1948 and 1973, Egypt and Israel fought four major wars and a collection of smaller skirmishes. Some of these conflicts — the Suez Canal crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967 and the October or Yom Kippur War of 1973 — had geostrategic implications for the United States. Any of them conceivably could have escalated into a confrontation between the two Cold War-era superpowers. And throughout that period, a strong, aggressive Egypt represented the gravest threat to the security of the state of Israel, which had become a vital U.S. interest in the Middle East. For all these reasons, and […]

At the beginning of April, after a loose coalition of Tuareg rebel groups forced the Malian army to abandon Timbuktu, one of the armed factions involved in the fighting didn’t lose much time in announcing its ultimate objective: “We, the people of Azawad declare irrevocably the independence of the state of Azawad,” read the communiqué issued by the National Liberation Movement of Azawad — known by its French acronym, MNLA — five days after the ancient city fell. The bold declaration is of course mostly wishful thinking. No state or international organization has recognized the independence of Azawad, as the […]

In the aftermath of François Hollande’s election as France’s president Sunday, much of the analysis has concentrated on the implications for Europe: in particular, how Hollande’s call for an emphasis on economic growth will impact the austerity cure imposed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the solution to the European Union’s sovereign debt crisis. This is understandable, as France’s — and Europe’s — economic solvency will of course condition much of its ability to act on the international stage. But a quick look at Hollande’s agenda in the coming weeks — G-8, NATO, G-20 and EU heads of state summits […]

Syrians in the town of Zabadani, on the border with Lebanon and not far from Damascus, have told United Nations observers they are caught in the middle of the current violence and living “in fear” of both pro-Assad and anti-Assad groups. World News Videos by NewsLook

When the United Nations sends peacekeepers to war zones, there are often excessive expectations about what they can achieve. By contrast, pessimism surrounds the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), which is supposed to oversee a ceasefire and create space for talks between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and its opponents. U.S. officials, having fought hard in the Security Council to maximize the mission’s autonomy and authority, have warned that it is too weak to succeed. While only a handful of the planned total of 300 hundred monitors are on the ground so far, the Norwegian general in charge […]

A few weeks ago, I met a friend from Damascus for coffee. He had just arrived from Syria a few weeks earlier, and I was curious to hear how he was adjusting to life in the United States. We had been talking for about half an hour when our conversation turned back to what my friend had left behind in Syria. And as my neighbors walked by our local coffeeshop en route home from work on a lovely spring day in Washington, my friend related to me in graphic detail how, last summer, he had been arrested, detained and repeatedly […]

U.S. Special Forces are now teaming up with African troops in the hunt for Joseph Kony, one of the world’s most wanted warlords and the subject of a recent viral video campaign. World News Videos by NewsLook